I turned inward, dancing with VanGogh.
Remembering now, of this time, a more assured painter began
to develop, as moving about a new space, my hands grew lighter and the
possibility of painting yellow directly over blue, without the dreaded
"green" outcome, became reality.
The Cafe Terrace at Night {1888) offered an excellent
opportunity for me to put into place these specific color combinations, with my
newly acquired skills, and see what would happen. I had tried this painting
several times before and none had survived the scrubbing process, so it was
with a certain amount of trepidation that I began doing what I had failed to do
about a year earlier.
Using my slow build up technique I was able to paint a very
dark blue background, some black buildings
and a lighted, very yellow terrace overhang, bathed in
yellow light as Vincent would have seen it. On top of all that, the streets of
cobblestone came out from the painting in various shades of purples and
oranges, with some light blues (shadows and light) on, and in between the
stones. Admittedly, the foreground was not captured in the fashion I'd hoped to
collect, however, yellow over blue without green gave me a great sense of
accomplishment. I even got a little carried away and put a
few figures between the buildings, using yellow over blue to create the green I
wanted. My God, things were happening.
The Night Cafe (1888) has always been a special work to me
because I've been to so many places just like it.
I'd wanted to do it for a long time and now, fresh from my
yellow over blue victory, tried again. If you know the painting, it has four
large gas lamps on a background of red walls, inside a typical but seemingly
rundown cafe that's populated by a more seedier side of life. There are tables
with people in a state of
collapse from drinking and a man and woman engaged in that
all too familiar talk in the background, with a "gentleman", perhaps
the owner, standing behind the pool table with that look we've all seen upon
the face of someone you should not play pool with. From my new painters viewpoint
it was, and always will be,
irresistible. Vincent's clock said ten past twelve, which I
changed to two o'clock, knowing that if I came
into a place like this at two o'clock I should leave, but
knowing I probably wouldn't.
What I was trying to accomplish in this painting was a newer
ability to use various colors, in combinations with one and another, and not
have them turn into a third, or worse yet, unplanned color. I hear Vincent
laughing as lushness, or thichness and color become the next steps past the
completion of The Night Cafe.
The
Cafe Terrace at Night (1888)
"yellow
over blue does not green make
but rather,
confidence, hand in hand with
tenacity
progress is time over failures" .
"Christ,
the pool player is so bad he looks
like a
displaced Mexican" .
You can save
the key figures for last and try to work them in.
Paintings is
thinking as well as a building.
